#WEDNESDAYWINES

After a much needed break from blogging, I'm back. I have a lot planned for the upcoming weeks in celebration of Fall and Halloween, and celebrations should start with a toast from a good bottle of wine.

If this is your first time here, once a month I write a review for a bottle of wine that my husband and I have bought and drank, based solely on the label/and or name and nothing else. Sometimes they relate to writing, but most times they're quirky, funny, unusual or somewhat dark.

This month we chose a California red blend called BLACK INK. Oh, I thought, I can tie that into writing. An author's computer, old typewriter or an even older writing instrument, a pen, use blank ink. Then another thought popped into my head - Black ink equals tattoos. I love tattoos, I have one and it would be fun to write a post about it. But I'd soon find out I was wrong on both counts.

This is Babette, our French Maid. She helps us out each month.

I always go the wine's website to look up the vineyard, etc., but I do that after we drink it. But when we opened it, we discovered what the winemakers were referring to and I thought it was fantastic (the wine, too).

Yes, squid ink! Isn't that cool?

Here's what the vineyard's website says:
Black Ink is an ode to fantasy through the arts, portraying elegance with an edge. In a celebration of decadence, juicy blackberry cobbler meets smoky licorice with a hint of spice. The capsule is marked with the allusive squid in a nod to the deep dark red hues within the bottle.

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One wine reviewer, Sherrie Wilkolaski said -
Black Ink is a cult wine for the masses. With the Halloween season upon us. what better way to celebrate than with a dark, sinister red wine with a dose of a secret component? I imagine a group of old witches standing over the cauldron, debating which ingredient they’ll blend in with this batch of red wine; something obscure that won’t be detected by the human eye, but on the tongue, will be noticed by the finest of pallets. “Why not squid ink?” one of the enchantresses suggests, and the rest is history. 

My husband and I both enjoyed this bottle of wine. So much so, we've gone back and bought two more bottles. It went well with our dinner of baked pork chops, red roasted potatoes and zucchini. It's a deep, dark red wine, not to dry and not to sweet. A Goldilocks bottle for sure. It went down smooth and had a slight smoky aftertaste.

I didn't taste the licorice or blackberry cobbler and neither did my husband. Maybe we don't have a fine pallet the aforementioned witches were looking for. But I'm all of decadence!! 

It's $9.99 a bottle and well worth it. It's produced by Black Ink Wines in Napa, CA. 

"Wine makes daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance."
-- Benjamin Franklin